De Bijenkorf gets ‘family insider’ as new CEO

Dutch luxury department store chain De Bijenkorf has a new CEO: Sean Hill, a member of the family that controls De Bijenkorf’s Thai owner, Central Group.

“Intensive course with the nuns”

The new CEO, who will start his new position tomorrow, has to help De Bijenkorf develop further: “As a member of the Chirathivat family behind Central Group, retail has been ingrained in him from a young age”, the company states in a press release.

The new CEO indeed brings a wealth of experience from the group’s various international department store formats. For the past five years, Hill was responsible for the real estate of Central Group Europe. Prior to that, he held leadership positions for five years at KaDeWe Group in Germany as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Development Officer. Still earlier, he worked at La Rinascente in Italy as Director of Retail Expansion, where his role involved introducing new brands and advising on new store locations.

Hill is currently “taking an intensive course with the nuns in Vught” to learn Dutch. “Together with management and the board, he will further develop our stores and platforms into destinations for unique experiences for our customers”, CEO André Maeder of the Selfridges Group adds. He took over the leadership of the Dutch brand in December, after the departure of CEO Matthijs Visch.